Jerry Uelsmann

  Jerry Uelsmann was an american photographer. He was born in 1934 and died in 2022. He was most well known for his composite images, which were when he would merge multiple photographs together to create one final image. Because digital cameras and Photoshop were not available yet, Uelsmann did all of his work in the dark room, exposing multiple negatives on the same piece of photo paper, using a line of enlargers each with a different negative on it as he went. (Wikipedia)


The first image I am choosing to talk about is this one. Before I even talk about the composite part of it, I just can really appreciate this image in its most basic form for having a good balance of light and dark. It’s very clear and the contrast makes it really appealing. On top of that, it’s of course impressive how seamlessly he is able to blend images together. The house blending right into the tree trunk is really impressive, and it's also a really cool concept for an image. Additionally, I think it's impressive that all of the lighting looks cohesive because sometimes when you take photos in different locations/times, the lighting won’t always be the same in all of the photos but I think he does a good job of making it cohesive.



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    The second picture I am choosing to talk about is this one. One thing I am noticing about Jerry Uelsmann is he has a really strong sense of balance in his photos and exposing and developing in a way that doesn't turn his grays muddy. His contrasts are really strong and it makes the photos so much more appealing. One thing that is really interesting about this photo is the ripples in the hands. I think it's cool because they're in front of a lake but it's also cool how he placed ripples on top of the hands so it looks like they're almost holding water too. Once again I think it's really impressive how seamlessly he blended his photographs together even though he didn't have Photoshop, and all he had was a darkroom.



Overall I am really impressed with Uelsman’s work. I appreciate his attention to detail when it comes to balancing lights and darks in his photos but also his attention to detail in combining photos. I imagine it would not be easy to do it seamlessly in a dark room so it's really impressive to me that he doesn't even look like there might be multiple images.


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